Travels in Southeastern Europe

The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.

TEPELEN TO ELBASAN. 309 culty, horses and all, in a big caik made of two dug-out tree-trunks, after the pack-animal had refused, rolled down the bank, nearly fallen into the river, been unloaded, and picked up again. Landing from these caiks is a gymnastic feat. You have to make your horse jump into the water first; then you persuade him to stand alongside, and you climb into the saddle from the caik's edge. After this we had a good track, and rode along merrily past a small Vlah village, where folk were dancing and singing weird songs. Soon, on a hilltop, we saw a solitary column, short and fluted, shining white on the blue sky, and the suvarri told how, long ago, a great city stood there, the sea came right up to the hill, and that was the post to which the ships were tied. Such is all that local legend tells of Apollonia-Apollonia, once one of the most important cities on the coast, celebrated alike for its commerce and its learning. From his studies here young Octavius hastened when he heard of the murder of his uncle, Julius Caesar, and it was one of the starting-points of the Egnatian Road, the great military road between Rome and the East. Now the sea has crept back, leaving a fever-stricken swamp in place of the port where Rome disembarked her legions, and not one wall stands of all the city. We rode up the next hill to the monastery of Pojana, and our horses' hoofs chipped black and white tesserae out of the path, part doubtless of the mosaic floor of a villa. Pojana and Avlona are both prob
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About this Item

Title
The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.
Author
Durham, Mary Edith, 1863-1944.
Canvas
Page 309
Publication
London :: Nelson,
[1905]
Subject terms
Eastern question (Balkan)
Balkan Peninsula -- Description and travel.

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https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ans3900.0001.001
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"The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham." In the digital collection Travels in Southeastern Europe. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ans3900.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 30, 2025.
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